Chapter 3 Towards a Universal Access Code of Practice in Health Telematics

Abstract

This Chapter presents a consolidated overview of methods and techniques that can be used to advance Universal Access thinking in the design and development of interactive applications and services in Health Telematics. The results presented provide an overview of the IS4ALL ”Code of Practice for Universal Access in Health Telematics”, which is detailed in subsequent Chapters of the handbook. In particular, the Chapter describes the code of practice in terms of three main elements: (a) a process-oriented (macro-level) approach intended to define stages of a structured process towards Universal Access practice in Health Telematics, (b) a collection of micro-level methods which address specific technical targets across various stages of the above process, and (c) validation scenarios which exemplify the application of the code of practice in Health Telematics. The macro-level method builds upon the scenario-based perspective on systems development and unfolds stages involved in generating scenarios and devising scenario quality attributes relevant to Universal Access. Micro-methods cover a wide range of technical targets from requirements engineering for Universal Access to design representations, prototyping, evaluation and validation. The case studies intended to validate the IS4ALL results have been selected to reflect alternative access regimes to Electronic Patient Records. The Chapter concludes with a discussion and critical review of the implications of Universal Access for Health Telematics applications development, and with the identification of prominent challenges to be addressed through further research.